Another gang
made an attempt on Lambeth Palace. [326] When stately abodes, guarded by
numerous servants, were in such danger, it may easily be believed that
no shopkeeper's till or stock could be safe. From Bow to Hyde Park, from
Thames Street to Bloomsbury, there was no parish in which some quiet
dwelling had not been sacked by burglars. [327] Meanwhile the great
roads were made almost impassable by freebooters who formed themselves
into troops larger than had before been known. There was a sworn
fraternity of twenty footpads which met at an alehouse in Southwark.
[328] But the most formidable band of plunderers consisted of two and
twenty horsemen. [329] It should seem that, at this time, a journey of
fifty miles through the wealthiest and most populous shires of England
was as dangerous as a pilgrimage across the deserts of Arabia. The
Oxford stage coach was pillaged in broad day after a bloody fight. [330]
A waggon laden with fifteen thousand pounds of public money was stopped
and ransacked. As this operation took some time, all the travellers who
came to the spot while the thieves were busy were seized and guarded.
When the booty had been secured the prisoners were suffered to depart
on foot; but their horses, sixteen or eighteen in number, were shot or
hamstringed, to prevent pursuit. [331] The Portsmouth mail was robbed
twice in one week by men well armed and mounted. [332] Some jovial Essex
squires, while riding after a hare, were themselves chased and run down
by nine hunters of a different sort, and were heartily glad to find
themselves at home again, though with empty pockets. [333]

The friends of the government asserted that the marauders were all
Jacobites; and indeed there were some appearances which gave colour to
the assertion. For example, fifteen butchers, going on a market day to
buy beasts at Thame, were stopped by a large gang, and compelled first
to deliver their moneybags, and then to drink King James's health in
brandy. [334] The thieves, however, to do them justice, showed, in
the exercise of their calling, no decided preference for any political
party. Some of them fell in with Marlborough near Saint Albans,
and, notwithstanding his known hostility to the Court and his recent
imprisonment, compelled him to deliver up five hundred guineas, which he
doubtless never ceased to regret to the last moment of his long career
of prosperity and glory. [335]

When William, on his return from the Contine